A Developer's Pitch on Upgrading to Shopify Plus: Everything Else Shopify Plus Has To Offer!

Shopify Flow

Although minimal information has been released at this point, Shopify is planning a beta in June 2017 for a new 'automation platform' that they're calling Flow. The promise is that it will allow merchants to customize unique backend 'workflows' without the need for programming, making the lives of a developer that much easier. Some of the key workflows that will be capable within Flow include:

· The ability to customize the way Shopify works so merchants can automate the repetitive tasks that occur within their business on a regular basis
· Allows for logic customizations to trigger actions after certain events and conditions are met, automating and streamlining administrative and monitoring tasks to create greater efficiency in existing and new business processes
· Customizations are created visually with a common language and logic and do not require coding knowledge
· Enabling customization and change will allow the platform to adapt and grow alongside the varied, unique and complex businesses on Shopify Plus
· Allows for discovery and experimentation by combining different sets of events, actions, and conditions

Mobile Store Builder

Another feature that's slated for release soon, but still with minimal information available, is Shopify's new Mobile Store Builder. The Mobile Store Builder will allow merchants to build a native mobile app without any technical expertise or coding. Some of the main features include:

Theme

Shopify already provides an incredible amount of flexibility in designing and developing custom themes for your store using their theming language, Liquid. As a Shopify Plus merchant, you'll have even more flexibility as you gain access to customize the checkout portion of your store.

Checkout.liquid and Checkout.scss.liquid

The checkout process for standard Shopify merchants has a limited number of brand elements and styling properties that can be customized within your store's settings. Shopify Plus merchants have the opportunity to expand beyond these basic settings using the Checkout.liquid layout and the Checkout.scss.liquid template. Between these two files, merchants can add custom styling, JavaScript and HTML elements that would otherwise be prohibited. There are still some baseline requirements such as including the {{ content_for_layout }} object to ensure the usual expected fields are output within your checkout process. Beyond that, however, developers have the opportunity to create a much improved checkout experience for users.

As you can see above, there are a number of reasons to consider upgrading to Shopify Plus that would excite any developer managing your website. Beyond these APIs, apps and theme features lie a number of other benefits that any e-commerce executive would find just as enticing. These include a built-in integration with Avalara to handle global tax management, 9 additional 'clone stores' to help meet the demands of growing an international e-commerce business and a dedicated account manager directly within Shopify to help prioritize support requests, answer platform questions and provide early-access to Shopify's product roadmap. If you're a growing an e-commerce enterprise that needs a robust platform to manage your sales and operations, consider getting in touch with Shopify Plus to discuss how an upgrade or migration could help take your business to the next level.

About Growth Spark

Growth Spark is an award-winning, nationwide team that helps e-commerce companies grow by building unique web experiences that convert visitors into customers. We are proud to be an official Shopify Plus Expert, and can help you grow your e-commerce business. If you’re interested in learning more give us a shout!﻿

“Integration has saved us at least 10 hours a week on just the fulfillment side. This new process has helped streamline the way our orders are inputted into Sage 100, and our team couldn’t be happier with the automation.
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Kyle Brandt, Wilson Electronics

“Life at Char-Griller is better now with eBridge integration.”

Nicholas Williams, Char-Griller

“If your business is at a point where you are doing a lot of manual data entry and you need automate processes, I would definitely recommend looking at eBridge Connections. Now that we have an integration solution in place, I can’t imagine operating without it.”

Eric Marquardt, LifeCORE Fitness

“So far so good. We are happy to see this [ShipStation integration] process up and running.”

Jason Barnell, DroneNerds

“eBridge's team understood what we needed and helped us every step of the way. They were always available for whatever we needed as we developed our new systems and helped bring us from idea to implementation to real world application. I would like to say thank you to the entire eBridge family for all the time and effort they put in to help us achieve our goals and highly recommend them to any business that sells online.”